Statistical Physics of Opinion Formation and Social Phenomena
A special issue of Entropy (ISSN 1099-4300). This special issue belongs to the section "Statistical Physics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 April 2023) | Viewed by 42418
Special Issue Editor
Interests: statistical physics; sociophysics; biophysics; networks; interacting particle systems; epidemic spreading; agent-based models
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The mathematical modelling of social phenomena has grown enormously during the last two decades, motivated by the availability of large-scale data of human behavior, attracting social and computer scientists as well as theoretical physicists and applied mathematicians. In particular, the field of physics, which uses mathematical methods from statistical and nonlinear physics to study human collective behavior, so-called sociophysics, has developed to investigate social phenomena such as opinion formation, political polarization, language evolution, cultural dissemination, rumor spreading, collective action, and crowd behavior. Among these, the modelling of opinion dynamics in a society has gained special attention, and several agent-based models have been introduced to capture different aspects of the opinion formation process from a theoretical viewpoint. Lately, opinion models have started to include more realistic features of social interactions, such as individuals' emotions and persuasion rooted in social psychology, as well as different types of individuals within a society, such as contrarians, extremists, moderates, nonconformists, and inflexibles.
The aim of this Special Issue is to provide original and recent investigations on sociophysics—in particular, on opinion dynamics. We encourage the submission of articles on emerging topics such as high-order interactions in networks (simplicial complexes), coupled social and disease processes applied to the COVID-19 pandemic, the inclusion of emotional arousal, data analysis based on social networks, and comparisons and/or validations of models with real data. Works may implement tools such as agent-based models, Monte Carlo simulations, information theory, entropy concepts, and machine learning techniques. Both review papers and regular articles are welcome.
Dr. Federico Vazquez
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- sociophysics
- opinion dynamics
- stochastic processes
- agent-based models
- networks
- simplicial complex
- computational methods for social sciences
- statistical physics approaches for social dynamics
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